There was a mass shooting a few hours ago at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, the town right next to my hometown. At least 11 are injured. Fatalities have been confirmed, but we still don’t know who. I’ve been staring at the live coverage, searching for any faces that I know, and the scene is devastating. So many people who did so much without a moment’s hesitation to help the people around them, and so many people wracked with guilt that they should have done more. A middle age man crying during an interview, saying that he should have stayed in there longer because at 56 he’s already lived a life that the college students in there will never have.
I don’t know what to say or to feel that hasn’t already been said and felt time and time again as we watch this exact scene play throughout the nation until we become horribly used to it. Until it becomes a notification in our news app that we sigh at and try not to think about. It feels so different in the moment you recognize the city’s name. It’s a feeling of horror and sadness, of outrage and emptiness, that we need to remember as much as it hurts. It’s a feeling we need to hold on to if we want we want that feeling to be spurred into change.
